Skip to main content
TIPCSTunisian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Women, Peace and Security in the Mediterranean region and its neighbourhood: from resolutions to implementation

A desk review across the thirteen countries where TIPCS works, with a proposal for research on national action plans, women's participation in mediation and the enforcement of laws on violence against women

Photo: Christina Morillo · Pexels License. Image credits

A desk review across the thirteen countries where TIPCS works, with a proposal for research on national action plans, women's participation in mediation and the enforcement of laws on violence against women

Abstract

Twenty-six years after United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the women, peace and security agenda has a dense normative framework and a growing number of national action plans, but the evidence on its implementation is uneven. This report reviews public evidence for the thirteen countries where the Tunisian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (TIPCS) has offices: Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Türkiye, Jordan, Iraq, Kenya and Italy. It sets out what the research literature shows about women's participation in peace processes and where its limits lie, compares verified national action plan status, scores on the Georgetown Women, Peace and Security Index, women's representation in parliament and intimate partner violence across the thirteen countries, and examines the processes in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. It also looks at one national law on violence against women, Tunisia's Organic Law 58 of 2017, as a test of the gap between legislation and practice. The data show wide divergence between countries, low and in some cases falling participation in formal talks, and persistent difficulty in costing and monitoring plans. The report identifies evidence gaps and presents a clearly labelled proposal for comparative research, designed around safeguarding and do-no-harm.

Key findings

  • Resolution 1325 was adopted on 31 October 2000 [1] and has been followed by at least nine further resolutions on the agenda [2]. As of June 2025, 113 countries and territories had adopted national action plans, up from 19 in 2010, but the Secretary-General notes that adequate budgets are fundamental and that many states rely on external support [3].
  • Formal participation remains low. In 2024 women made up on average 7% of negotiators and 14% of mediators in major peace processes, and nearly nine in ten negotiation tracks had no women negotiators; in Libya and Yemen women were entirely excluded from official ceasefire negotiation delegations [3].
  • Studies associate women's influence in negotiations with agreements that are reached and that last [4, 5, 6], but the samples are small, causal identification is difficult and the authors themselves stress that influence matters more than headcount [5].
  • All thirteen countries appear in the Women, Peace and Security Index 2025/26, from Italy (39th of 181, score .811) to Syria (178th, .364); five of the thirteen rank 152nd or lower [7]. Women's share of seats in the lower or single house ranged from 32.8% in Italy to 5.1% in Syria on 1 June 2026, against a world average of 27.4% [8, 9].
  • Verified national action plans exist for Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Kenya and Italy; no adopted plan could be verified for Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Syria or Türkiye, although Algeria and Libya have taken steps (a mediators' network project and a roadmap) [10, 11, 12].
  • Tunisia's Organic Law 58 of 2017 is a comprehensive law covering prevention, protection and prosecution [13], yet a 2022 national survey found that 84.7% of women aged 15 to 74 reported at least one act of violence since the age of 15, under a broad definition [14]. One survey cannot show whether the law has reduced violence, which is the question implementation research should answer.
  • TIPCS proposes, subject to funding and ethical review, comparative research on national action plan implementation, women's influence in mediation and the enforcement of violence-against-women laws, with published indicators. This is a proposal, not a record of past work.

Desk review of public sources. Every figure is cited; nothing in this document reports a TIPCS result. Passages labelled as proposals describe what TIPCS would do, not what it has done.

1. Context and why it matters now

On 31 October 2000 the Security Council adopted resolution 1325, which urged Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict, and called on all actors negotiating and implementing peace agreements to adopt a gender perspective [1]. Subsequent resolutions addressed sexual violence in conflict (1820, 1888, 1960, 2106 and 2467), monitoring indicators (1889), gender equality as critical to international peace and security (2122), financing and countering violent extremism (2242), and full implementation of all previous resolutions (2493) [2].

Three developments make a review timely in late 2026. First, the agenda has passed its 25th anniversary, and the Secretary-General's 2025 report describes the normative foundation for women's participation in peace processes as the strongest it has ever been, while warning of rising conflict-related sexual violence, targeted threats against women in public roles, and funding cuts to women's organisations on the front lines [3]. Second, the number of people exposed to conflict has risen: the Georgetown Women, Peace and Security Index 2025/26 reports that more than 676 million women lived within 50 kilometres of armed conflict in 2024, a 74% rise since 2010 and the highest number and proportion recorded [7]. Third, several countries in the region have recently adopted or are drafting new national action plans, including Italy's fifth plan (2025 to 2029), Kenya's third plan and Tunisia's second plan [15, 16, 17].

The thirteen countries where TIPCS has offices range from settings of active or recent armed conflict (Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon) to a European country with an established plan that launched a regional mediators' network (Italy), with Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Türkiye, Mauritania and Kenya in between. The question for policy is no longer whether the agenda exists but whether commitments translate into participation, protection and resources. This report is a desk review of public sources written for governments, donors, municipalities, civil society organisations and researchers. It separates documented facts, attributed to their source, from interpretation, and from the proposal in Section 6, which describes what TIPCS would do and is not evidence. Terminology follows United Nations usage. 'n/a' means that no comparable figure was verified.

2. What the evidence says

How much women take part in formal peace processes

The most comprehensive recent data come from the UN Women Women in Peace Processes Monitor, launched in 2024 and cited in the Secretary-General's report. For 2020 to 2024 it finds that women's representation as negotiators, mediators and signatories in major peace processes remains far below the one-third minimum set by the United Nations. In 2024 women were on average 7% of negotiators, 14% of mediators and 20% of signatories, but the five-year average for signatories was 11%; nearly nine in ten negotiation tracks included no woman negotiator and two thirds of mediation efforts included no woman mediator [3]. In processes led, co-led or supported by the United Nations, women were on average 18% of negotiators or delegates in 2024, down from 19% in 2023 and 23% in 2020, although all UN mediation teams have included women since 2012 and women's share of those teams rose from 40% to 45% between 2023 and 2024 [3]. The averages are heavily influenced by a small number of processes, notably in Colombia and the Philippines [3].

The earlier series from the Council on Foreign Relations, covering 1992 to 2019, put women at 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators and 6% of signatories, with five-year averages for 2015 to 2019 of 14%, 11% and 7% respectively [18]. The Secretary-General's report notes that the 2020 to 2024 figures are similar to the earlier data sets [3]. The two series use different coding and should not be read as a trend line. Of 36 peace agreements reached in 2024, 11 (31%) contained at least one provision referring to women, girls, gender or sexual violence, but these came from only four processes in three countries (Colombia, South Sudan and Sudan), and only one agreement, in South Sudan, contained a gender quota [3].

Does women's participation improve outcomes

Three studies are most often cited. Krause, Krause and Bränfors analysed 82 peace agreements from 42 armed conflicts between 1989 and 2011 and found a robust correlation between agreements signed by women delegates and durable peace. Only 13 agreements in six peace processes had women signatories, so the authors could not test selection bias with advanced methods; they present the result as a correlation and attribute it to linkages between women signatories and women's civil society groups, a mechanism supported by case studies rather than statistical tests [4]. O'Reilly, Ó Súilleabháin and Paffenholz, drawing on forty peace and transition processes, report that where women could effectively influence a process, an agreement was almost always reached and was more likely to be implemented [6]. Paffenholz and colleagues (2016) analysed 40 qualitative cases between 1989 and 2014 and report that the strength of women's influence is positively correlated with agreements being reached and implemented, at a statistically significant level and of medium strength. The Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative study concludes that making women's participation count matters more than counting the number of women included, and that quotas alone did not guarantee influence [5]. An earlier policy brief by Paffenholz adds that the inclusion of women does not in itself lead to better quality and more sustainable agreements [19].

Three cautions follow. The samples are small and the cases are not randomly selected, so the possibility that processes with a higher chance of success are also more open to women cannot be excluded [4]. The cases span many regions, and the sources reviewed do not test how far the findings transfer to the Mediterranean region and its neighbourhood. And the more useful finding for practice concerns modality: women's groups were most influential when they had their own delegations or coordinated joint positions and when consultations had a clear route to negotiators [5]. This shifts attention from the number of seats to the channel through which women's positions reach the table.

Financing and the implementation gap

The Secretary-General reports that bilateral aid to women's rights organisations and movements in contexts of high and extreme fragility averaged USD 186 million a year in 2022 and 2023, 0.4% of bilateral aid to conflict-affected contexts and down from USD 205 million in 2020 and 2021, below the United Nations recommendation of at least 1% [3]. Of the 113 existing national action plans, 55% include explicit commitments on women's participation in peace processes and 42% a dedicated commitment to support women mediators; only 38 of the 113 refer to arms control, ammunition management or disarmament in their monitoring frameworks [3]. The Secretary-General adds that many countries and territories still struggle to finance their plans fully and depend on external support [3]. Parliamentary quotas matter in the same way: in conflict-affected countries women hold on average 25% of parliamentary seats where quotas are in place, against 14% where they are not [3].

3. The regional picture across the 13 countries

National action plans

Table 1 summarises what could be verified from the PeaceWomen tracker, United Nations sources, government documents and press reports. The tracker is undated and lists no plan for Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Syria or Türkiye; it counts 110 countries with a plan, against the Secretary-General's 113 as of mid-2025, a difference that suggests the tracker is not fully current [3, 10]. Absence from the tracker is therefore not proof that no plan exists, and where no plan could be verified the cell says so.

Table 1. National action plan (NAP) status in the 13 countries, as verified
CountryStatus as verifiedSource
TunisiaNAP 2018 to 2022 listed by the tracker. A second NAP for 2025 to 2030 was presented by the Foreign Minister at the UN General Assembly in September 2026, according to a press report; the plan text was not reviewed.[10, 17]
AlgeriaNo NAP found. In March 2025 the National Human Rights Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNDP signed a 12-month project, funded by Japan, to support a national network of women mediators under resolution 1325.[10, 11]
LibyaNo adopted NAP verified. In June 2021 UN Women and the Ministry of Women's Affairs agreed to draft a roadmap towards a NAP.[10, 12]
EgyptThe government announced in May 2019 that it would develop a first NAP. No adopted plan was found; status not verified.[10, 20]
MauritaniaNo NAP found in the tracker; no other source located.[10]
PalestineSecond NAP adopted on 5 April 2021 with UN Women and Norwegian support; UN Women gives the period as 2020 to 2024 and dates the first plan to 2016, whereas the tracker lists 2020 to 2023 and an earlier plan for 2017 to 2019.[10, 21]
LebanonFirst NAP, a four-year costed plan with a total budget of USD 15,069,616 including a 10% government contribution, presented in 2019; the tracker lists 2019 to 2022. In March 2024 the UN Resident Coordinator cited achievements across five pillars. No successor plan verified.[10, 22, 23]
SyriaNo NAP found. The United Nations continues to support a women's advisory board.[3, 10]
TürkiyeNo NAP found in the tracker; a 2021 analysis states that Türkiye had not developed one.[10, 24]
JordanFirst NAP 2018 to 2021; second NAP (JONAP II) 2022 to 2025, developed by the Jordanian National Commission for Women with UN Women and ESCWA. Successor not verified.[10, 25]
IraqNAP 2021 to 2024 (first plan 2014 to 2018). A third NAP was under development in February 2025, when UN Women and the National Directorate for Iraqi Women consulted 75 representatives of civil society and government.[10, 26]
KenyaKNAP II 2020 to 2024; KNAP III validated in July 2025, covering women in early warning, mediation and security institutions and technology-facilitated gender-based violence.[10, 16]
ItalyFifth NAP 2025 to 2029 (forewords dated 6 August 2025). Four objectives; annual progress report prepared with civil society; no dedicated budget specified; Action 1.5 provides for strengthening the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network.[15]

Source: TIPCS compilation from the sources cited in each row. Status as of 26 October 2026; the PeaceWomen tracker is undated.

Two observations follow. First, the thirteen countries differ in the type of plan and the means to carry it out. Lebanon's plan was costed from the start, and Italy's contains indicators on expenditure ratios for development cooperation but no dedicated budget [15, 22]. Second, an Arria-formula meeting on plans in the Middle East and North Africa on 24 January 2019, as summarised by PeaceWomen, heard that WPS achievements come mostly from countries with plans but not always, that implementation and follow-up were of the essence, and that the lack of sustainable allocated budgets was a main obstacle; women's groups in Syria and Yemen had also shown good practice outside plan frameworks [27]. That event is dated, but the same themes appear in the Secretary-General's 2025 report [3].

Women's status across the thirteen countries

The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Peace Research Institute Oslo rank 181 countries in the 2025/26 Women, Peace and Security Index on 13 indicators across inclusion, justice and security. All thirteen countries are covered [7]. Table 2 gives scores and ranks for the 2025/26 and 2023/24 editions. Ranks are not directly comparable between editions because the number of countries changed from 177 to 181, and scores combine data of different vintages, so changes of a few thousandths should not be interpreted [7, 28]. The Index reports that the Middle East and North Africa regional score of .536 fell by 5% relative to the 2023/24 edition [7].

Table 2. Women, Peace and Security Index scores and ranks, 2025/26 and 2023/24
Country2025/26 rank (of 181)2025/26 score2023/24 rank (of 177)2023/24 scoreScore change
Italy39.81134.827-.016
Jordan88.68692.679+.007
Tunisia100.67196.669+.002
Türkiye106.66499.665-.001
Algeria123.621118.622-.001
Egypt125.617110.645-.028
Libya128.608122.610-.002
Lebanon141.575128.595-.020
Kenya152.542149.511+.031
Iraq158.510168.424+.086
Mauritania166.475151.506-.031
Palestine167.469156.483-.014
Syria178.364171.407-.043

Source: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and PRIO, WPS Index 2025/26, statistical table 1 [7]; WPS Index 2023/24, statistical table [28]. Score change calculated by TIPCS. Rows ordered by 2025/26 rank.

The largest rise is Iraq's (+.086), which the Index lists among seven countries that moved out of the bottom ten; it notes that, although the Islamic State was defeated in Iraq between late 2017 and mid-2018, Iraq's score only began to improve after the 2023/24 edition [7]. Part of the movement may reflect data revisions: the value for intimate partner violence in Iraq is 45.3% in the 2023/24 table and 15.1% in the 2025/26 table [7, 28], which suggests that the underlying surveys differ in vintage or method rather than that women's experience changed by that amount. The Index shows Egypt (-.028), Mauritania (-.031) and Syria (-.043) with the largest falls, but the report does not provide country-level explanations for these changes in the sections reviewed.

Representation and violence

Table 3 sets women's parliamentary representation, taken from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) monthly ranking, beside two Index indicators on security: intimate partner violence in the past 12 months, and the share of women living within 50 kilometres of armed conflict.

Table 3. Women in parliament, intimate partner violence and proximity to conflict
CountryWomen in lower or single house, 1 June 2026 (%, seats)Intimate partner violence, past 12 months (% of ever-partnered women, Index 2025/26)Women within 50 km of armed conflict (%, Index 2025/26)
Italy32.8 (400)3.50.0
Egypt26.9 (596)15.152.1
Iraq25.5 (329)15.156.8
Mauritania23.3 (176)18.357.0
Kenya23.0 (348)22.820.9
Türkiye19.9 (592)12.130.7
Jordan19.6 (138)13.50.0
Libya16.5 (170)12.734.2
Tunisia15.8 (152)10.17.0
Algeria7.9 (407)10.52.6
Lebanon6.3 (128)14.7100.0
Syria5.1 (137)19.097.1
Palestinen/a (not in IPU ranking)19.1100.0

Source: IPU, monthly ranking of women in national parliaments, 1 June 2026 [8]; WPS Index 2025/26, statistical table 1 [7]. Index values flagged in the source as estimates or from other years are reproduced without the flag. Rows ordered by parliamentary share. World average of women in parliament, all chambers, 27.4% on 1 August 2026 [9].

Only Italy exceeds the world average, with Egypt and Iraq close to it. Iraq's share reflects a constitutional provision: Article 49 states that the elections law shall aim to achieve a percentage of representation for women of not less than one quarter, and the 2025 election produced 84 women in 329 seats, or 26% [29]. By contrast, Tunisia introduced a new electoral law in September 2022 which, according to Human Rights Watch, eliminated the principle of gender parity in elected assemblies by removing parity provisions from an earlier law; women hold 15.8% of seats in 2026 [8, 30]. In Kenya the constitutional requirement that no more than two thirds of members of either gender be of the same sex was once again not met in the 13th Parliament, according to a press analysis [31]. These cases show that formal commitments and outcomes depend on enforceable electoral rules, which the Secretary-General's data on quotas also indicate [3].

The violence indicators call for care. The Index values are compiled from sources of different years and methods, as the source's date ranges and flags indicate, and they are not the same as the figures from national surveys, which use different definitions and age ranges. They place Kenya (22.8%), Palestine (19.1%), Syria (19.0%) and Mauritania (18.3%) highest in the group and Italy (3.5%) lowest [7]. A UN Women summary states that an estimated 840 million women, almost one in three, have been subjected to physical or sexual violence by a partner, a non-partner or both, and that progress in reducing intimate partner violence has been very slow, with an annual decline of 0.2% over two decades [32]. Lebanon, Palestine and Syria record 100%, 100% and 97.1% of women within 50 kilometres of armed conflict in the Index [7], though the Index measures proximity, not experience of violence.

Peace processes: Libya, Syria, Iraq and Palestine

Libya. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya convened the first Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in Tunis in November 2020 with 75 participants, of whom 17 (23%) were women, after earlier talks that included only three women; the forum's roadmap called for 30% of leadership positions in a future unity government to be held by women, and women participants raised transitional justice and transparency on the agenda. However, the 5+5 Joint Military Commission had no women, and the forum did not produce a lasting political solution [33]. The Secretary-General reports that in Libya and Yemen women were entirely excluded from official ceasefire negotiation delegations despite efforts to include them, and that the United Nations led or co-led two processes relating to Libya in 2024 [3]. Members of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network lobbied in 2018 for three women to be added to the delegations at the Palermo Conference [34].

Syria. In 2016 the UN special envoy established a 15-member Syrian Women's Advisory Board, the only such body a UN envoy has set up, and at the December 2017 Geneva talks women made up 15% of the opposition and government delegations. The Constitutional Committee appointed in 2019 had 13 women among 45 members in its small body (29%) and 24 among 150 in its large body (16%) [35]. Since the change of authorities in late 2024, the Secretary-General records that one of the 23 ministers appointed by the interim authorities is a woman [3]. An Atlantic Council analysis reports, on the basis of conversations with organisers and participants, that women were approximately 20 to 25% of participants at the February 2025 National Dialogue Conference, that the electoral framework requires at least 20% women across all electoral committees taken together, and that women hold 11% of seats (20 of 179) in the election sub-committees; civil society is campaigning for a 30% quota [36]. The IPU records 5.1% women in the lower or single house in June 2026 [8].

Iraq. The Secretary-General notes that independent delegations and advisory bodies have been central to women's direct and indirect participation in Iraq and Syria, and that the United Nations continues to support women's advisory boards in both countries [3]. The same report records that women who returned from camps in north-east Syria to Iraq face barriers in obtaining legal documentation, often needing a man's consent or the denunciation of a relative linked to Da'esh [3]. The third Iraqi NAP was in development in February 2025 [26].

Palestine. Palestine adopted its second NAP on 5 April 2021 to consolidate women's participation in decision-making, conflict prevention and peacebuilding, and it recognises the disproportionate impact of conflict and occupation on women and girls [21]. The Index puts all women in Palestine within 50 kilometres of armed conflict [7]. The Secretary-General's report cites OHCHR for the finding that between 2023 and 2024 the number of women and children killed in armed conflicts quadrupled compared with the previous two-year period and that seven of every ten women killed in conflicts worldwide died in Gaza [3]. No verified, comparable data on women's presence in formal negotiating delegations in this context were found for this review, and the figures on casualties are attributed to the source cited and are not independently verified here.

4. Analysis: drivers, mechanisms and openings for cooperation

Plans without budgets, indicators without enforcement

The most consistent pattern is the gap between adoption and delivery. Plans are adopted with international support (the Palestinian, Jordanian, Iraqi and Libyan examples above all involved UN Women or other external partners), and the Secretary-General reports that many countries struggle to finance them [3, 12, 21, 25, 26]. Lebanon's decision to cost its first plan at USD 15,069,616, with a 10% government contribution, is an example in the group of making the financing gap visible at the outset [22]; Italy's fifth plan commits to indicators and an annual report with civil society, but no budget line [15]. For donors and governments, the policy-relevant variable is therefore not whether a plan exists but whether it is costed, whether a lead institution controls resources, and whether independent monitoring is published. The sources reviewed contain no verified evaluation of whether the existence of a plan changes outcomes in any of the thirteen countries.

Legislation and enforcement: the case of Tunisia's Law 58 of 2017

Organic Law 2017-58 aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women through prevention, prosecution and punishment, and protection and care of victims. It defines physical, moral, sexual, political and economic violence; requires specialised units, including women, in every national security and national guard station; provides for protection orders issued by a family judge, lasting up to six months with one possible extension; creates a national observatory on violence against women; and introduces offences including street harassment and political violence [13].

Outcomes are harder to read. The National Statistics Institute's 2022 national survey, presented in preliminary form in March 2024 with UNFPA support, covered women aged 15 to 74 in 11,610 households. It found that 84.7% reported at least one act of violence since the age of 15 (all types combined) and that 42.7% of married, divorced or widowed women had experienced at least one act from a husband or former husband; in the previous 12 months, moral violence was reported by 49.3%, sexual violence by 15.6%, economic violence by 11.4% and physical violence by 5.3% [14]. The very high headline rate reflects a broad definition that includes psychological and verbal violence and cannot be compared with narrow measures of physical or sexual partner violence such as the Index figure of 10.1% [7, 14]. Press reporting on civil society data records 26 femicides in 2024 across 16 governorates, and reports to services of 50,000 to 58,000 a year with no clear downward trend [37]. These figures describe prevalence and reporting, not the law's effect: with one cross-section and no comparable baseline in the sources reviewed, it is not possible to say whether the law has reduced violence, increased reporting or neither. Time series on protection orders, prosecutions and sentencing by specialised units would be needed.

Backlash and reversal

Gains are not linear. The Women, Peace and Security Index notes that some countries are passing repressive laws or repealing laws advancing gender equality, including laws on violence against women, and gives the example of Türkiye's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 [7]. In Tunisia the removal of parity requirements from electoral law in 2022 was followed by a lower share of women in parliament than the world average [8, 9, 30]. The Secretary-General reports that in conflict-affected countries only 20% of parliamentarians are women, that local-level representation falls to 18%, and that the Syrian interim cabinet includes one woman among 23 ministers [3]. None of these developments proves a causal chain from rule changes to outcomes, but they show how legal safeguards can be narrowed even where treaties and plans remain in place.

Regional networks and openings for cooperation

The Mediterranean Women Mediators Network was developed and launched by Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Istituto Affari Internazionali and Women in International Security Italy; it was presented to the Security Council in March 2017 and launched in Rome on 25 and 26 October 2017. Its initial scope covered 25 countries including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Tunisia, Türkiye and Italy among the thirteen, and not Mauritania, Syria, Iraq or Kenya; it began with 44 members and had 55 by November 2020 [34]. Its own review, based on desk research and about 30 interviews in 2019 and 2020, found that women's informal or community-level mediation often goes unrecognised at official level and that women mediators remain largely absent from high-level talks [34]. Italy's fifth NAP now includes an action to strengthen the network [15], and Algeria has begun a project on a national network of women mediators [11]. These are openings, but the evidence reviewed does not show whether the networks have changed who sits at formal tables.

Counter-evidence and competing interpretations

Reasonable readers interpret the evidence differently. One reading is that the agenda has made real progress: the Secretary-General cites more UN mediation led by women, routine consultation with women's civil society, documentation of gender-based crimes and a rise from 19 plans in 2010 to 113 [3]. A second reading is that formal participation has stagnated or fallen and that the normative gains are fragile, pointing to the fall in women's share of negotiators in UN-supported processes from 23% to 18% [3]. A third, more methodological reading is that the research linking women's participation to durable peace is correlational and based on few cases, so claims of causal effect should be treated cautiously [4, 5]. These readings are not mutually exclusive. The evidence does not allow them to be separated cleanly, and this report does not take a position between governments or political actors.

5. Implications for policy and practice

The following implications follow from the evidence above. They are addressed to named kinds of actors and framed as options for consideration.

  • Governments: cost national action plans, assign a lead institution with budget authority and publish annual implementation reports with indicators, as Lebanon's costed plan and Italy's reporting arrangements illustrate [15, 22]; where no plan is verified (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Syria, Türkiye) consider whether a plan or an equivalent framework would add to existing commitments [10].
  • Mediators and envoys: design for influence, not headcount: separate delegations or joint positions of women's groups, and clear channels from consultations to negotiators, are the modalities most associated with influence [5]; document the share of women in each track and the reasons where there are none [3].
  • Donors: protect and raise core, flexible funding for women-led organisations; bilateral aid to women's rights organisations in fragile contexts is at 0.4% against a recommended 1% [3]; fund independent monitoring of national action plans alongside plan development.
  • Parliaments and electoral bodies: assess how electoral rules, rather than declarations, affect women's representation; quotas are associated with higher shares in conflict-affected countries [3], and the Iraqi, Tunisian and Kenyan cases show the effect of enforceable, or removed, provisions [29, 30, 31].
  • Justice and interior ministries: publish administrative data on protection orders, prosecutions and specialised-unit caseloads under laws such as Tunisia's Law 58 of 2017, disaggregated by governorate, so that implementation can be evaluated [13, 14].
  • Municipalities and civil society organisations: support local women mediators and connect informal mediation to official processes, since informal mediation is often unrecognised [34]; share monitoring data under agreed ethical protocols.
  • Researchers: test the participation-outcome relationship with regional cases, report uncertainty, and distinguish headcount, modality and influence [4, 5].

6. What TIPCS proposes

TIPCS is an independent, nonpartisan research, dialogue and training institute headquartered in Monastir, with offices in the thirteen countries covered by this report and working in English, French and Arabic. It has seven policies in force (code of conduct, safeguarding and PSEA, anti-fraud and anti-corruption, conflict of interest, whistleblowing and complaints, sanctions and due diligence, and research ethics and editorial independence) and publishes its funding. TIPCS proposes three linked workstreams designed around the evidence gaps identified in Section 4.

Workstream 1: an open implementation tracker for national action plans

TIPCS would test the hypothesis that the main constraint on implementation is not the existence of a plan but the combination of costing, institutional location and independent monitoring. It would code every available plan in the thirteen countries and the plans' annual reports, where published, against a common template (budget lines, lead institution, indicators, civil society role, external funding share, reporting frequency), verify the status of each plan with the responsible national authority, and publish the dataset and method openly in English, French and Arabic. Where plans do not exist or are not public, the dataset would record that fact rather than infer it.

Workstream 2: women's influence in mediation and local peace processes

TIPCS would ask which participation modalities are associated with influence in selected processes in the region, using the modality framework of the Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative as the analytical starting point [5]. Methods would combine document analysis, structured interviews with consenting participants (mediators, delegates, civil society, officials), and comparison of formal and informal tracks. Case selection would include at least one process in North Africa and one in the Levant, subject to access and safety assessments. The work would build on, and not duplicate, existing regional networks such as the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network [34]. TIPCS would also offer gender-inclusive mediation training and facilitated dialogue between local women mediators, municipal authorities and civil society, with evaluation designed in from the start.

Workstream 3: enforcement of laws on violence against women

Starting with Tunisia's Law 58 of 2017, TIPCS would assess implementation through administrative data (protection orders, specialised units' caseloads, prosecutions and sentencing, shelter capacity), a review of court practice, and interviews with professionals. No survivors would be interviewed unless a specialist partner with trauma-informed protocols and referral services were in place and a local ethics committee had approved the design. The analysis would aim to identify where cases drop out between reporting and sentence, and would be shared first with the competent institutions.

Table 4. Proposed indicators (proposal)
ComponentResearch questionProposed indicators
Plan trackerWhich design features of national action plans are associated with delivery?Share of plans with published budgets; share with named lead institution and reporting schedule; share of reports published on time; share of costs funded domestically versus externally
MediationWhich participation modalities are associated with women's influence?Share of women by track (negotiator, mediator, signatory, observer); presence of women-only delegations or joint positions; documented uptake of women's proposals in texts; number of local women mediators trained and linked to formal processes
EnforcementWhere do cases drop out between complaint and outcome?Protection orders requested, granted and enforced; prosecutions and convictions per reported case; time from complaint to decision; share of stations with trained specialised units
SafeguardingDid participation expose anyone to harm?Safeguarding concerns raised and resolved; consent withdrawals; data-protection incidents; share of staff and partners trained

Source: TIPCS proposal.

Safeguarding and do-no-harm

  • Safeguarding and PSEA, research ethics and editorial independence policies would apply to all staff, partners and consultants, and complaints and whistleblowing channels would be available in English, French and Arabic.
  • Data minimisation: no collection of identifying data about survivors; consent obtained in the participant's language; the right to withdraw at any time; secure storage under access controls; remote or neutral venues where participation in a process is politically sensitive.
  • Local ethical review in each country of fieldwork, an independent advisory group with gender-based violence and mediation specialists, and a documented stop rule if the research appears to create risk for participants.
  • Independence and neutrality: TIPCS would not take positions between parties to any conflict, would publish funding sources and conflicts of interest, and would publish findings that do not support the proposal's assumptions.
  • Referral: field teams would carry updated referral lists for legal, medical and psychosocial services and would not promise outcomes they cannot deliver.

Partnership model and measurement

TIPCS would seek written partnerships with universities and research institutes, national women's machineries, ministries responsible for plan implementation, women's organisations, municipalities and international agencies, with agreed roles and shared data governance. Results would be measured against the indicators in Table 4 at baseline, mid-term and end-line, with an external evaluator, and published in English, French and Arabic.

7. Risks, limitations and what we do not know

  • Status of plans. The PeaceWomen tracker is undated and appears incomplete; several statuses in Table 1 rest on press reports or older documents, and the text of Tunisia's second plan and of Kenya's third plan was not reviewed. Absence of evidence of a plan is not evidence of absence.
  • Index comparability. The WPS Index mixes indicators of different years and sources, ranks are not comparable across editions with different country numbers, and values flagged in the source as estimates are reproduced without the flag [7, 28].
  • Participation data. The Women in Peace Processes Monitor data were described as initial and averages are driven by a few processes; CFR and UN Women series use different coding [3, 18].
  • Causality. The studies linking women's participation to durable peace are correlational with small samples [4, 5]. Nothing in this report shows that a national action plan, a quota or a law caused a particular outcome.
  • Violence data. Survey measures differ in definition, age range and recall period; the Tunisian survey figures are preliminary and the source itself gives two values for the 12-month rate (57.1% in text and 57.3% in a chart), which is why the 12-month overall rate is not used here [14].
  • Source mix. Several Syria, Kenya, Tunisia and Algeria items come from press reports or analysis rather than primary documents [17, 31, 36, 37].
  • Gaps. No verified, comparable public data were found on women's presence in formal negotiating delegations in Palestine, on plan outcomes in any of the thirteen countries, or on women's participation in Mauritania, Egypt and Türkiye in mediation processes.
  • Proposal risks. Research on women's participation and violence carries risks of exposure and retaliation, and security conditions in some countries may prevent fieldwork; safeguards reduce, not remove, these risks.

8. Conclusion

The public evidence supports a measured conclusion. Twenty-six years after resolution 1325, the normative framework is strong and seven of the thirteen countries have a verified plan and three more have announced or taken preparatory steps, but formal participation in negotiations remains low, women's representation in parliament varies from 5.1% to 32.8%, and the funding of plans and of women's organisations is thin [1, 3, 8]. The research linking women's influence to better peace outcomes is suggestive and consistent, but correlational, and it points to the modality of participation rather than the headcount [4, 5]. What is missing is not further declaration but independent, comparable evidence on how plans, quotas and laws operate in practice: costed plans with published reports, route-by-route data on who sits at which table, and administrative data on enforcement. The proposal in Section 6 is intended to contribute to that evidence base from within the region, with safeguards that match the sensitivity of the subject.

Method and limits of this brief

This report is a desk review of public sources accessed on 26 October 2026; it does not draw on primary fieldwork, interviews or non-public data. Several figures are taken from secondary or press reports of primary documents (including those on Tunisia's second national action plan, Kenya's two-thirds gender rule, Syria's National Dialogue Conference and Tunisian femicide counts), and the PeaceWomen national action plan tracker is undated, so plan statuses in Table 1 should be checked with national authorities. The Women, Peace and Security Index and parliamentary data are secondary compilations whose indicators come from different years and sources. The research on women's participation and durable peace is correlational. Statements about TIPCS are limited to its institutional profile and to the proposal in Section 6, which describes intended work and not results.

References

  1. [1]United Nations Security Council (2000). Resolution 1325 (2000), S/RES/1325, adopted 31 October 2000. United Nations. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S/RES/1325(2000)&l=en&t=pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  2. [2]UN Women (n.d.). Global norms and standards: peace and security (overview of Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security). UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/peace-and-security/global-norms-and-standards (accessed 2026-10-26)
  3. [3]United Nations Secretary-General (2025). Women and peace and security: report of the Secretary-General, S/2025/556 (September 2025). United Nations Security Council. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4090738/files/S_2025_556-EN.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  4. [4]Krause, J., Krause, W. and Bränfors, P. (2018). Women's participation in peace negotiations and the durability of peace. International Interactions, 44(6). https://www.uc3m.es/igualdad/media/igualdad/doc/archivo/doc_women-participation-in-peace-negotiations-textos/krause.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  5. [5]Paffenholz, T., Ross, N., Dixon, S., Schluchter, A.-L. and True, J. (2016). Making Women Count - Not Just Counting Women: Assessing Women's Inclusion and Influence on Peace Negotiations. Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative and UN Women. https://wps.unwomen.org/pdf/research/Making_Women_Count.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  6. [6]O'Reilly, M., Ó Súilleabháin, A. and Paffenholz, T. (2015). Reimagining Peacemaking: Women's Roles in Peace Processes. International Peace Institute. https://www.ipinst.org/2015/06/reimagining-peacemaking-womens-roles-in-peace-processes (accessed 2026-10-26)
  7. [7]Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Peace Research Institute Oslo (2025). Women, Peace and Security Index 2025/26. Georgetown University. https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/WPS-Index-2025-Report.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  8. [8]Inter-Parliamentary Union (2026). Women in national parliaments: monthly ranking as of 1 June 2026 (lower or single house). IPU Parline. https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=6&year=2026 (accessed 2026-10-26)
  9. [9]Inter-Parliamentary Union (2026). Global and regional averages of women in national parliaments, as of 1 August 2026. IPU Parline. https://data.ipu.org/women-averages/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  10. [10]PeaceWomen, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (n.d.). National Action Plans by region (1325 NAPs tracker; undated). PeaceWomen. https://1325naps.peacewomen.org/index.php/nap-overview/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  11. [11]UNDP Algeria (2025). Soutien à la mise en place du Réseau National de Médiatrices conformément à la Résolution 1325 (signing ceremony, 27 March 2025). United Nations Development Programme. https://www.undp.org/fr/node/516706 (accessed 2026-10-26)
  12. [12]UN Women Arab States (2021). Libya Ministry of Women's Affairs and UN Women agree to collaborate on women, peace and security (21 June 2021). UN Women. https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2021/06/libya-ministry-of-womens-affairs-and-un-women-agree-to-collaborate-wps (accessed 2026-10-26)
  13. [13]Republic of Tunisia (2017). Loi organique n° 2017-58 du 11 août 2017, relative à l'élimination de la violence à l'égard des femmes (French text). https://inkyfada.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Loi-organique-n%C2%B0-2017-58-du-11-ao%C3%BBt-2017.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  14. [14]Institut National de la Statistique, Tunisia (2024). Enquête nationale sur la violence à l'égard des femmes 2022: résultats préliminaires (communiqué, March 2024, with UNFPA support). INS. https://www.ins.tn/sites/default/files-ftp1/files/publication/pdf/FR_Communiqu%C3%A9.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  15. [15]Interministerial Committee for Human Rights (CIDU), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy (2025). Fifth National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2025-2029. Government of Italy. https://cidu.esteri.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/V-PAN-DPS-2025-2029_EN.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  16. [16]UN Women Africa (2025). Women at the heart of Kenya's peace and security agenda (news story on KNAP III). UN Women. https://africa.unwomen.org/en/stories/news/2025/10/women-at-the-heart-of-kenyas-peace-and-security-agenda (accessed 2026-10-26)
  17. [17]La Presse de Tunisie (2026). A New York, Nafti reaffirme l'engagement de la Tunisie en faveur des femmes, de la paix et de la sécurité (24 September 2026). https://www.lapresse.tn/2026/09/24/a-new-york-nafti-reaffirme-lengagement-de-la-tunisie-en-faveur-des-femmes-de-la-paix-et-de-la-securite/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  18. [18]Council on Foreign Relations (n.d.). Women's participation in peace processes: women's participation in major peace processes, 1992-2019. CFR. https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes (accessed 2026-10-26)
  19. [19]Paffenholz, T. (2015). Beyond the Normative: Can Women's Inclusion Really Make for Better Peace Processes? Policy brief, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. https://www.peacewomen.org/sites/default/files/Graduate%20Insitute%20of%20Geneva-%20Beyond%20the%20Normative.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  20. [20]Egypt Independent (2019). UN Women praises Egyptian government's decision to implement UNSCR 1325 (29 May 2019). https://egyptindependent.com/un-women-praises-egyptian-governments-decision-to-implement-unscr-1325/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  21. [21]UN Women Palestine (2021). Palestine Second National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (publication page; adopted 5 April 2021). UN Women and Ministry of Women's Affairs, State of Palestine. https://palestine.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/04/palestine-nap-ii (accessed 2026-10-26)
  22. [22]United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (2019). NCLW presents National Action Plan on Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (roundtable of 19 June 2019). UNSCOL. https://unscol.unmissions.org/en/node/57855 (accessed 2026-10-26)
  23. [23]United Nations Lebanon (2024). Resident Coordinator's remarks at the UN Women and NCLW closing event (26 March 2024). United Nations. https://lebanon.un.org/en/266480-resident-coordinators-remarks-unwomen-and-nclw-closing-event (accessed 2026-10-26)
  24. [24]Zorlu, B. (2021). How to integrate the women, peace and security agenda in Turkish foreign policy (1 May 2021; discussing a report by Alemdar and Yinanç for SWP CATS). Equality Justice Women Platform (EDK). https://esitlikadaletkadin.org/how-to-integrate-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda-in-turkish-foreign-policy/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  25. [25]UN Women Arab States (2022). The Second Jordanian National Action Plan for the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security 2022-2025 (publication page). UN Women and Jordanian National Commission for Women. https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2024/05/the-second-jordanian-national-action-plan (accessed 2026-10-26)
  26. [26]UN Women Iraq (2025). UN Women and the National Directorate for Iraqi Women convene civil society consultation to advance Iraq's third National Action Plan on women, peace and security (press release, February 2025). UN Women. https://iraq.unwomen.org/en/stories/press-release/2025/02/un-women-and-the-national-directorate-for-iraqi-women-convene-civil-society-consultation-to-advance-iraqs-third-national-action-plan-on-women-peace-and-security (accessed 2026-10-26)
  27. [27]PeaceWomen (2019). What's next for women, peace and security in the Middle East and North Africa: the potential of national action plans (summary of the Arria-formula meeting of 24 January 2019). WILPF PeaceWomen. https://peacewomen.org/node/103470 (accessed 2026-10-26)
  28. [28]Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Peace Research Institute Oslo (2023). Women, Peace, and Security Index 2023/24 (copy hosted by the Estonian Women's Studies and Resource Centre). https://enut.ee/files/Women-Peace-and-Security-Index-2023_24.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  29. [29]International IDEA (n.d.). Gender Quotas Database: Iraq (Constitution, Article 49; 2025 election result). International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas-database/country?country=106 (accessed 2026-10-26)
  30. [30]Al Jazeera (2022). New Tunisia electoral law 'eliminates' gender parity: HRW (4 November 2022). https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/11/4/new-tunisia-law-eliminates-gender-parity-hrw (accessed 2026-10-26)
  31. [31]The Kenya Times (2026). Two-thirds gender rule: will the 13th Parliament comply with the Constitution? (press analysis). https://thekenyatimes.com/national/two-thirds-gender-rule-will-the-13th-parliament-comply-with-the-constitution/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  32. [32]UN Women (n.d.). Facts and figures: ending violence against women. UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-ending-violence-against-women (accessed 2026-10-26)
  33. [33]Council on Foreign Relations (n.d.). Women's participation in peace processes: Libya case study. CFR. https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/libya (accessed 2026-10-26)
  34. [34]Fellin, I. (c. 2021). Understanding the journey: past, present and future of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network. IAI and WIIS Italy, with support of the Government of Italy and UN Women (undated; dating inferred from content). https://knowledge.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/understanding-the-journey-past-present-and-future-of-the-mediterranean-women-mediators-network-en.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
  35. [35]Council on Foreign Relations (n.d.). Women's participation in peace processes: Syria case study. CFR. https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/syria (accessed 2026-10-26)
  36. [36]Forestier, M. (2025). In landmark Syria elections, women still face electoral hurdles. Atlantic Council MENASource, 17 September 2025. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/in-landmark-syria-elections-women-still-face-electoral-hurdles/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
  37. [37]AllAfrica (2025). Tunisie: le pays face à la réalité des violences à l'égard des femmes et des féminicides (7 July 2025; reporting data from INS, Aswat Nissa and the Ministry of Family, Women, Children and Seniors). https://fr.allafrica.com/stories/202507070661.html (accessed 2026-10-26)

How to cite

Tunisian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (TIPCS) (2026). Women, Peace and Security in the Mediterranean region and its neighbourhood: from resolutions to implementation. Monastir: TIPCS. www.tipcs.org/publications/women-peace-security-implementation